This is where it all started for me...

[AJ]

Glad I got that number out of the way. Still waiting for a better number....

[paul m]

Hello. When I was 20 I said I've got to settle down. When I was 30 I said I've got to straighten out, I have responsibilities. When I was 40 I said what to heck can happen to me next( turns out a lot). When I was 50 I finally said, I am just going to try and enjoy whats left of my miserable life. Hey that's part of what worked(plus lots of meds and work)

Seriously, never give up. I will not say that my life is great or one to be aspired to. I would not wish all of the hell I went through on my worst enemy. But I got better and others can too. I realize there is a big difference between well and better. However I can honestly say now that I enjoy my life now, immensely more than what I did at 30 or 40. So whether your 43 or54 do not give up. Take Care. paul m

[Woody]

The three most important dates in my life were
16 -- when I got my drivers license
19 -- when I was legally able to get into bars
25 -- when my drivers insurance dropped

Since then age as had little to no meaning. Hardest question for me to answer is how old I am. I have to sit there and think ok this is 2009 so i am ...

I know this is the illness speaking but feel I have lived my life and now I am just waiting for my number to come up.

[paul m]

Hello Woody. Wow, your insurance went down!, Just kidding, mine had reasons for not going down.

I will not try and understand what was behind your statement about waiting for your number to be up. First it really is none of my business and second I can never walk in anothers persons shoes or understand how difficult their life is.

However I will stick my nose firmly in and say that anybody who makes a difference in this difficult world should not be in a hurry to ck out, there is a shortage already.

Woody you do make a difference, I have read 100's of posts that you have wrote here. I would not have read all that many if I did not like them. I am busy elsewhere and do not always get to post here, but I do know that you have made a difference , sometimes with some info, sometimes with a bit of humor and sometimes just with some pleasant conversation.

People like YOU, A.J. and others make a daily difference in people's lives through dedication. So if your number comes up, please bang it back down again, people need you. You would probably be surprised at how many lurkers tune in dailey just so they do not feel alone. Take Care paul m

[AJ]

Thanks Paul. Today I needed to be reminded that sometimes the little things do make a difference.

Too funny Woody. I do the same thing 2009 - 1960 = ? Why do doctors always ask how old you are. They have the chart in front of them. Sometimes I just say I'm a dinosaur. Sometimes my brain just doesn't want to work that hard, and if they insist I say 'I was born in 1960, you figure it out.' My birthday is in November, so the minus thing doesn't work so well.

[Guest]

Age? What's "age?" And what's it got to do with ANYthing in life, except being used by others as a measure of "success." Depending on your age plus what's happening at the time, you are either "up and coming," "arrived" or "over the hill!" I'm now going by "years of experience:" so, I'm forever Jack Benny's 39 yrs old, but I've got 13 years' experience, so far. And I'm not celebrating birthdays every year any more - I'm waiting til I get 15 yrs' experience, 20, 25 and so on. (Can everybody see the tongue in my cheek right about now?....)

[paul m]

Hello MerelyMe08. I gotta agree with you on the age, its just a thing. For myself, I just keep asking what I am going to do when I finally grow-up. Considering I was in school in 1960, (barely) I've been saying that for a while. Take Care. paul m

[Woody]

It only went down because i did not get caught

If any consolation is that at least I got the year right. Last year, it was April and I was till using 2007 when dating documents

[paul m]

Hello Woody, talking about insurance and getting caught. When I was 18 and did not know I was bipolar, I was in the midst of perhaps my worse manic episode to date. (looking back). It was 3.a.m. and I was sober and I saw a police car and for no reason I just decide to see if I could go faster than him. I could and did, but I could not outrun the whole small town police force, although I tried.

It cost me $600 between my lawyer and my fine, which at $1.75 hr took a lot of hrs work to pay off. I always have figured that the local paper should have paid me a share of the extra profit they made on the stories.

It could have been worse, I got let off with careless driving and my insurance did double for 5 yrs. Today they would have strung me up! I feel sorry for the youth with bipolar, I did a lot of stupid things, but I never had to pay for it the way they do today. Of course there was also no excuse of mental problems back then either. Take Care. paul m

[AJ]

I'm glad you didn't get in an accident Paul. When I was having a mixed episode I drove down a one way street the wrong way. The same week I made a road where there wasn't one to get past a gas truck that was blocking the exit. No police chases.

[paul m]

Hello A.J. As strange as it may seem, I was never prone to accidents. However I was very prone to risky behaviour. (past tense, too medicated and too old now LOL)

This is an area of mania that is not talked about enough. It used to be published in older booklets all of the time. Risky behaviour can cover a lot from speeding to risk taking to ***ual indiscretions.

Risky behaviour often does not get mentioned to our shrinks making us harder to diagnose correctly. In all my yrs of going to a shrink I only had one ask me if I got a lot of speeding tickets, misbehaved outside of my marriage vows etc. Those behaviours, while not indicative of a person with bipolar, certainly would have helped my shrinks get my diagnosis right years earlier. (Like many others I was mis-classed as having depression for yrs)

Bipolar does not always hit hard and fast, it may take yrs to case a serious disability. I bring all of this up only so that someone may see the symptoms in themselves or a relative or friend. All to often bipolar is still misdiagnosed for too long. Take Care. paul m

[AJ]

'All to often bipolar is still misdiagnosed for too long.'

I was misdiagnosed for years too. Unless you're screaming while running naked down the street, they assume you're depressed.

[paul m]

Hello A.J. That is very true. I think the average is about 7 yrs. misdiagnosed. I could never understand that. I was a real Jekyll and Hyde personality, depending on where my moods were. When manic I wasn't even nice to my shrink.

Looking back, I would have thought that it would have been a no-brainer to figure out that something different than depression was my problem.

I was a conservative, kind, gentle, intelligent family man, who would turn into a free spending,snarky, miserable , self centered uncaring anything but a devoted family man. How hard is that one to figure out when you have the same shrink for yrs.(long since replaced)

But at least I did not have to run naked and screaming down the street. Thank goodness, at my age and with the shape I am in, even more people would be claiming mental distress Thx. paul m

[Woody]

Originally i was diagnosed with depression in 1998
Until some time after I got my BPII in 2004, I did not have risky behaviors, I had badges of honers ... so even if the doc had asked me, I would not have correlated the two

[paul m]

Hello Woody. I am sorry. I did not mean to imply that there was anything you or anybody else could have done to speed up their correct diagnosis. I should have used different wording on that last post.

All I meant is shrinks are supposed to be skilled in asking probing questions. I have found few do and to my own detrement I am pretty good at deflecting those questions, especially if they are embarrasing.

In my case my wife even had permission to talk with the shrinks and none showed a real interest in deeply probing her or even giving her a seperate appt.

Once I got a shrink that started to ask simple questions like, was my speech ever accelerated, did I ever for no reason become sarcastistic, would I all of sudden become obsessed with something or would I suddenly start to think somebody was out to get me,what were my sleep habits like etc, things started to become clearer. He insisted interviewing my wife seperately and asked her all the same questions. This made it much harder for me to fudge some of the simplier truths.

He too took a long while to get the proper diagnosis, but he got it. When he did tell me that I had manic depression, I had no idea what he was talking about. I could not have speeded up my diagnoses either due to lack of knowledge on my part, but my shrinks sure could have.

Now during my recovery I definitely was more than a little dumb and sometimes a difficult patient. This combined with stubborness definitely added yrs to my recovery. Take Care. paul m